I think this is the basic problem. It's the perception that the 'poor' pay no taxes.

That may be true of the income tax, but they most certainly DO pay sales taxes, FICA, excise taxes, etc. I'm looking for the numbers that I read a couple of weeks ago that showed how, when you add up all the taxes, the picture of who's paying what percentage of taxes changes DRAMATICALLY. This is largely due to sales taxes and other similar taxes.